<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Sons of Wisdom by Darkmagyk</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22353646">Sons of Wisdom</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmagyk/pseuds/Darkmagyk'>Darkmagyk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Demigods, Family, Gen, Twelve Gods of Olympus (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore), everyone is still a superhero</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:20:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22353646</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkmagyk/pseuds/Darkmagyk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>'Bruce has always known he’s meant for war. </p><p>As a son of Athena, the gods probably think he’s meant for their war. </p><p>They are wrong.' </p><p>Bruce Wayne is a Demigod. It changes absolutely everything. It changes almost nothing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cassandra Cain &amp; Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson &amp; Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson &amp; Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson &amp; Jason Todd, Jason Todd &amp; Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown &amp; Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown &amp; Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown &amp; Cassandra Cain &amp; Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake &amp; Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Dick Grayson, Tim Drake &amp; Dick Grayson &amp; Jason Todd &amp; Bruce Wayne &amp; Damian Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Jason Todd, Various people/greek gods</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>470</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sons of Wisdom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This has a bunch of little references to a lot of Percy Jackson things, big and small. But nothing that could be called spoilers, and no characters from Percy Jackson show up, save a couple of gods. </p><p>I have been wanting to write this for a while.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thomas Wayne is a doctor. And a genius. He likes medicine, but he also likes money. He’s got a lot of it, but the things he does with it are impressive. Innovative.</p><p>And people always forget about commerce. They remember the wisdom and the war, the weaving. But they forget that Athena was a goddess of commerce, of economies of scale. Maybe more as Minerva, but even as herself. </p><p>So while Thomas, orphaned young, but not so young, toils away in med school, he takes breaks in a downtown office building and plots to build an empire. </p><p>Athena joins him. </p><p>They put their heads together, they plot and they plan. She loves his mind and he loves hers. </p><p>That is all they loved in each other. She has no interest in another part of a man, and Thomas has another at home, an actor with a bloody past he found in a London theater.</p><p>Even still, before Athena moves on, and Thomas starts his residency, she leaves behind a gift. A little boy in a golden sling on the steps of Wayne Manor. A little boy with her father’s dark hair and his mother’s gray eyes. </p><p>***</p><p>This is what Bruce remembers: Mommy’s smiles, Daddy’s kisses, Alfred’s hugs. Mommy and Daddy don’t share a room, Daddy and Alfred do. Mommy teaches him about people, Daddy teaches him about money, Alfred teaches him how to hold a sword and a dagger. Mommy tells him about history, Daddy tells him about science, Alfred tells him about the Olympians and the great heroes like Perseus and Aeneas. </p><p>Here is what Bruce remembers: sometimes there are monsters. Mommy pats his head, and laughs it off. Daddy bit his lip and glances at the sky. Alfred tells him if he ignored them, they might ignore him back, for now. </p><p>Here is what Bruce does not remember: Alfred’s pursued lips as Thomas tries to explain where the baby came from and that the greek gods exist. Alfred’s tacit acceptance, and Thomas’s tears of relief. Private inquires and closed doors meetings. Martha Kane, a very strong prenup, and a set of signatures in front of a judge. Stories about a whirlwind romance and secret baby. Thomas and Martha not really understanding the box of books written in ancient greek and latin Alfred orders when Bruce starts to take an interest in what’s on the page. </p><p>Here is what Bruce remembers: spiders were once his greatest fear. </p><p>Here is what Bruce remembers: the moment it became a gun.</p><p>Here is what Bruce remembers: declaring war, and knowing in his bones, that war was what he was meant for.</p><p>***</p><p>Gotham Academy says Bruce Wayne has ADHD, dyslexia, and a bunch of anger issues. He’s caused approximately five hundred thousand dollars worth of damage to the school. He is twelve years old, and if he was just about anyone else, they’d have kicked him out.  </p><p>He’s in the backseat of a mercedes, with a split lip and dirt in his hair. </p><p>“So,” Alfred finally says, “Want to tell me what happened?”</p><p>“You won’t believe me,” Bruce spits back. “No one ever does.”</p><p>“With all I have seen, Master Bruce,” Alfred replies, “You might be surprised by what I would believe.”</p><p>“My math teacher was a monster,” Bruce finally admits, slouching down so low in his seat as to be out of Alfred’s sight in the rear view mirror. “She had horns and her tongue and…” He stops, “I guess it doesn’t matter.” </p><p>“I believe we’ve talked about Monsters before,” Alfred finally says, they’re not driving back to the Manor, they’re driving into the city, towards the tower.</p><p>“Yeah, ignore them, they’ll ignore you,” Bruce says, “I guess it's a good way to make me shut up.” He bites down on his lip, hard, but then spits out “Mom always just laughed at me.” </p><p>“Mrs. Kane,” And Alfred always calls her that when its only he and Bruce, “was an extraordinary woman in many ways. But she couldn’t see your monsters.” He pulls into the below ground parking garage. “But I can.” </p><p>Bruce has no idea what that means. But he rides with with Alfred all the way up the tower. The CEOs office is occupied, but his dad’s personal one is always empty. Board members have told Bruce they’re saving it for him. When he’s feeling less generous and sullen, which is most of the time, he tells them to take it. </p><p>Now Alfred sits him down in one of the plush chairs and says, “This is where your mother met your father.” </p><p>Bruce knows that Mom and Dad met on a very secluded beach in France. Had heard the story from plenty of insufferable people at parties he has to go to. </p><p>Alfred tells him something completely different, as he stands at Dad’s old window, overlooking Gotham. His left hand rests on his right forearm, and he weaves a story of two brilliant minds that came together, and made Bruce. A story too fantastical to be true. </p><p>Bruce knows all about the greek gods and goddesses. Alfred’s been telling him their stories as long as he can remember. </p><p>He can read Ancient Greek and Latin better than he can manage English, some days.</p><p>He knows it is true. Just like he knows he’s meant for war. </p><p>A son of Athena. The gods probably think he’s meant for <em>their</em> war. </p><p>They are wrong. </p><p>***</p><p>Alfred says there is a safe place, in New York State, for people like Bruce. </p><p>Demigods. </p><p>Bruce turns him down flat. Alfred knows how to swing a sword, how to twist a dagger, and Bruce will take that lesson. Bruce spends a lot of time tracking down imperial gold and celestial bronze. Alfred says they are the metal that can kill monsters. He’ll keep a celestial bronze knife in a coat pocket and he eyes sharp, just in case. He uses them, too. He learns to fight by battling impossible monsters on the streets of Gotham.</p><p>But Bruce is planning for a bigger war. He does not seek his mother’s blessing in this. He is going to be a crusader for a different kind of justice. </p><p>He does not seek his mother’s blessing, but he cannot imagine a world in which the goddess Athena does not want her son to gather all the knowledge he can. </p><p>***</p><p>He learns criminology. He learns psychology. He learns forensics. He learns every martial discipline he can find. He learns he is very bad at archery. He learns to speak as many languages as possible, and more or less fails to learn to read and write any of them. He learns escapology. He learns to fly a plane and sail a ship and drive a car and ride a horse.   </p><p>He does not escape the other part of himself. He learns the Sphinx has changed her riddle. He learns he’s not good at manipulating the mist, even if he can see through it. He learns that children of Hermes can pick locks, with magic, so are useless at teaching the skill. He learns how to resist charm speak from beautiful children of Aphrodite, and also how to coordinate colors without being too matchy from them. He learns about the big three and their too powerful children. He learns to surf and gets hit on by naiads. He learns that kids his age and younger get sent into the world for quests. He buys a lot of demigod heroes cheeseburgers. </p><p>He learns other gods haunt the world, too.</p><p>He’s always been good at logic, at riddles, at picking things up. Children of Athena don’t have obvious magic powers the way some of the kids he’s met have. But he uses his brain, and he builds himself into a great warrior.</p><p>***</p><p>Bats have nothing to do with Athena. </p><p>That’s not the <em>only</em> reason he chooses it. </p><p>The other reason is he can’t actually stand to make himself a spider. </p><p>Alfred frowns a lot, but does not call him on any of it. </p><p>***</p><p>He is Vengeance, He is Justice, He is Night. </p><p>He is Batman. </p><p>It is easier than being Bruce Wayne, Son of Athena. </p><p>***</p><p>Sometimes he does have to be Brucie Wayne, though. He goes to parties and gallery openings, the theater and charity dinners. </p><p>And he goes to the circus. </p><p>The flying Graysons are amazing, until they aren’t. </p><p>The little boy, the ringmaster said he was only eight, stands in the middle of the ring, over his parents' bodies. </p><p>In the chaos, Bruce makes his way to the center ring as well. He doesn’t know what to say, he puts his hand on Dick Grayson's shoulder and Dick looks up at him with the most familiar gray eyes. Bruce has seen them in the mirror his whole life. </p><p>Bruce Wayne has met children of Athena before. Has liked them, even. </p><p>But Dick Grayson is an eight year old orphan, except for the fact that his mother is the goddess of wisdom. </p><p>Bruce Wayne has met other children of Athena before but Bruce Wayne has always been an only child. </p><p>“Hello Dick,” Bruce says, “Lets go sit down.”</p><p>He helps his little brother into a chair.</p><p>Well, fuck.</p><p>***</p><p>Bruce can't just leave his little brother, can he. And by the end of the month, Bruce has permanent custody of Dick Grayson. </p><p>He’s smart and clever, which is no surprise. But he’s such a different person. He’s ADHD and battle ready, but channels that into backflipping down the stair banisters, swinging off the chandelier, and investigating every inch of the house.</p><p>He’s found his way past a bunch of security and into the bat cave two weeks after he’s officially made part of the manor’s household. And he works out that Bruce is Batman without actually seeing Bruce in the suit or the cave or even one of the suits in the cave. </p><p>He’s also functionally illiterate. He’d gone to school at the circus, but when confronted with his inability to read English, they’d just moved on. He’s advanced at math, has an eye for detail, can solve any logic puzzle you put in front of him, and has memorized books of facts other people have read to him. He is the first person to give Bruce any kind of challenge at Risk. But he can’t read. </p><p>They hire a private tutor who labels his dyslexia quickly. And after a month of minimal progress and the already dim light in Dick’s eyes fading face, Bruce pulls the plug and tells him just about everything he knows. </p><p>He explains about demigods and monsters Dick admits to seeing. He explains about special skills and Ancient Greek and dyslexia. </p><p>He explains more important things, too, about Batman and biological parents vs. real parents. But also about brothers, though Bruce has never had a brother any more then Dick has.  </p><p>Then he sits Dick down, and by the end of the day, he can make it through the beginning of the Iliad. </p><p>He puts Dick off about joining him at night, until the kid shows up anyway, dressed in his old circus costume and mask, and successfully out maneuvers Tony Zucco. </p><p>Dick almost chooses Owl as the name, after his birth mother, but his mom was an amazing woman, and Dick Grayson is a Son of Athena, and but he's the son of Mary Grayson, so he goes with Robin, instead.</p><p>He never really stops wondering how all that happened. Bruce had an Alfred to explain. Dick doesn’t have anyone. </p><p>***</p><p>The Court of Owls is what happened, though Dick will never know it, and Bruce will only ever suspect. </p><p>The Court had long sought Athena’s favor, but she never saw fit to grant it. But there were whispers and rumors, that only a Goddess might hear. And She goes and sees John Grayson, sees if his son might be a great warrior. </p><p>Yes, she had decided, with the blessings of Athena, he just might. </p><p>John and Athena spent barley a week together, in the end. And when the child was left for him, it was Mary who found him first, and named him a foundling, but who was so eager to make him part of her family. </p><p>If Mary noticed how much her son looked like his ‘adoptive father’ she never said anything. She never cared. </p><p>Dick will never know the specifics, but he knew the love. And he took a name in honor of that little nickname for a baby found on the first day of Spring. </p><p>***</p><p>Barbara Gordon is a golden child. She gets all As, she’s the best in her ballet class, she’s the star of the basketball team. She teaches herself Latin in a few weeks, and Ancient Greece in even less time. She seems to always know the right thing to say or do, just before its needed. A therapist once asks her if it is because she feels guilty about how her parents died and her aunt and uncle had to take her in. </p><p>Barbara did not go back to that therapist. She never felt guilty about that. Never felt like she was missing a damn thing. Maybe that was wrong. Maybe she should have missed Roger and Thelma Gordon. But her dad is the best dad in the entire world, and she wouldn’t trade him for a thing. Even when Aunt Barbara and James Jr. are still around.</p><p>Dad is her dad, but Aunt Barbara has never really been her mom. She knows she has one, because everyone does, but Babs has never really felt like she needs a mom. She has the sun on her face. She has a killer karaoke game. She has the uncanny ability to make the best guesses. And she has her dad. </p><p>***</p><p>Bruce Wayne is Dick Grayson’s older brother. That should be enough. </p><p>But Bruce Wayne is never just Dick Grayson’s older brother. And that is probably the root of an awful lot of their problems as Robin grows up.</p><p>***</p><p>Once, when Barbara is ten, her dad picks her up from taekwondo. They walk back to the station, where his car is parked, when they find themselves with the full attention of a monster. And there are a lot of weird things in Gotham, but normally they have fewer heads. </p><p>The scream Barbara lets out when it hits her father is so piercing, the monster looks dazed, like someone hit him with a bean bag round. </p><p>She stands her ground, holds her head high, plants her feet, rests her fists on her hips. She can do something. She has to do something. He dad took her to the shooting range, sometimes, maybe if she can get his gun…</p><p>The arrow sails right over her head. It misses the monster, but its tip is sharp, and just a few inches from Babs’ feet. She wishes she had a bow. She’s never tried archery before, but she thought, in that moment, she’d be good at it. </p><p>Instead she grabs the arrow, and holds it in front of her, almost like a knife. </p><p>She make note of where a heart would be, on a human body. And then she attacks with her arrow. </p><p>Her aim is true, and the monster deteriorated, leaving behind something hard and shiny. </p><p>“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that before.” She hasn’t heard anyone else, but a girl in the ally with her. She has dark hair and a silver parka and wears circlet on her head. She had a bow in her hand and a quiver on her back. </p><p>“Is this yours?” Barbara offers the arrow back to her. </p><p>“You can keep it,” She looks Barbara up and down. “I have a group of friends, you know, hunters, girls like you, I think. We travel the world, we stop monsters like that. We’d love to have you.” </p><p>Barbara looks at the girl, then at the arrow, then at her dad, sprawled on the sidewalk, groaning, coming too. </p><p>“I can’t,” She said. </p><p>The other girl frowned, but drew something from her belt. A knife, that glowed bronze in the low light, “Well, if you change your mind,” she threw the knife at Babs, who caught it easily, “I’d hate for you to die before you get the chance, because you weren’t properly armed.” Barbara would have preferred the bow, but it's a good knife. She uses it for many years, with much success. </p><p>When she tells Dick Grayson the story, many years later, he laughs and laughs and laughs, and says that if she’d ever shared that one, then the fact that she once dressed up as batman, and launched herself at robbers on the way to a costume party, wouldn’t have been a surprise. Then he asks who her <em>real</em> mother is. </p><p>Barbara calls him a dick in Greek and says she doesn’t need a mother. </p><p>***</p><p>Jim Gordon is a sniper. And he's damn good at it. He's got a since for timing and angle and the math of it all. He can hit targets and make shots that most other people wouldn't risk. He's also married, which makes certain things that he's been repressing since he was a teenager easier in a Don't ask Don't Tell world.</p><p>But he meets this guy on furlough one day, with a smile like the sun. They go to a dive bar and play darts, the guy kills it at karaoke. The affair is short. And he doesn't find out that the guy is actually Apollo, the freaking greek sun god, until later. When he also finds out that two guy dating can have unexpected effects, when one is a god. He spins a story about a car accident and dead bothers and orphaned nieces, and he names the child after his own wife, in hopes, somehow, that that will make it ok. He leaves the army and sets up shop as a cop, and hopes that will heal the wounds he caused.</p><p>When his marriage falls apart, when James Jr. keeps getting worse and worse, he'll wonder if he's cursed. And then Babs with hum a tune, or make a basket, or show up on a rooftop, criminal in hand, and he'll know he might be cursed, but he is blessed as well.</p><p>***</p><p>Demigods, Bruce knows, normally live in packs. They stay at camp and quest in groups. </p><p>Bruce had always seen himself as a loner, but with Dick gone, with Barbara washing in and out of his life, he must face the fact that maybe it isn’t true. He’s always had Alfred. He had Dick. He had Babs, he even had Jim. </p><p>Now he has himself and Alfred’s silent judgement. Alfred was an officer in the army. He always fought with a team. </p><p>Bruce still has a war to fight, though. Team or not. </p><p>He isn’t thinking about recruiting the day someone tries to boost the tires off the batmobile. Bruce and Batman has run into every kind of demigod imaginable. Sometimes children of Hermes do this kind of shit for the thrill, but also, demigods live hard lives, and this kid is thin and shaky, and maybe Bruce, Batman, will give him money for a burger and a bus ticket to Long Island, even after he throws the tire iron. </p><p>He gives chase. It isn’t exactly a hard battle. And the kid finally turns on him, fists raised, ready for a fight he can’t possibly win. Batman meets the kids eyes, gray, so gray. </p><p>And Bruce knows. He knows and he takes in another little brother.</p><p>***</p><p>Jason Todd is 12, and has been fighting his whole life. </p><p>Recently he’s been fighting a lot of monsters with a tire iron.</p><p>“It is a wonder he's still alive.” He overhears Batman tell his freaking butler that first night in the cave.</p><p>“It is my experience that sons of Athena are very resilient.” The butler says in a crisp accent, so perfect it sounds like he’s from a movie. </p><p>“My mom’s name was Catherine,” Jason says, his mouth is full of the pizza that was served on glass plates, like at a diner. </p><p>Batman and the Butler turn back to look at him. Batman took his mask off when they first got to the cave. He isn’t that old, really, maybe in his early 30s, with dark hair and grey eyes like Jason. He says his name is Bruce, which is a dumb name for a superhero, in Jason’s opinion. </p><p>“My mom’s name was Catherine,” Jason repeats, though he feels his ears go red under their attention. But then, Jason is good at balancing his chances, his odds, so he doesn’t back down, this time “What kind of name is Athena, anyway. Like, is it suppose to be after the goddess?”</p><p>***</p><p>Owls are nocturnal. Dick did a lot of research about them once for a project in high school biology, after Bruce said he couldn’t do it on Robins. </p><p>Lots of things attract him to the name Nightwing: Clark’s story and blessing, the continued theme of birds, even the image of a dark night with a winged creature hunting. </p><p>But owls, the symbol of Athena, are nocturnal too. </p><p>He can honor a lot of people with this new name.</p><p>***</p><p>If Jason struggles with reading, he never shares. Though dyslexia is common among the demigods, but it isn’t a requirement. </p><p>Still, once the full story of Bruce and Athena and what they suspect about Jason’s own birth, two things stand out to him: he’s special, he could read Ancient Greek. </p><p>Over the next weeks and months, two things consume him, convincing Bruce, his brother, to make him Robin, and reading every bit of Ancient Greek text in the manor. </p><p>It's a lot of text. He manages the Iliad and The Odyssey, first, then some hymns, and then moves on to Alfred’s comedies and tragedies.</p><p>Bruce has always kept his personal files in his mother’s language, and when Dick showed up, always better at Greek than English, he found no reason to change them.</p><p>Jason studies and learns and he trains and Bruce is happy to have himself a Robin again. </p><p>***</p><p>In some ways it is easier, the fact that they are all brothers, it gives them something firm and solid to stand on. Labels in a place where they might not have them.</p><p>Dick takes to Jason and Jason takes to Dick, even though the resentment in Dick’s eyes doesn’t stop when he looks at Bruce.</p><p>Olderbrotherhood, Dick has come to believe, comes with certain expectations. Ski trips and training and a lot of inside jokes in ancient greek. </p><p>“Your’s a good older brother, Dick,” Bruce says, one evening, when Jason’s helping Alfred in the kitchen for just a moment. </p><p>“Sometimes you learn from example,” Dick says, “sometimes an example of what not to do.”</p><p>In other ways, being brothers makes it so much harder. </p><p>“Your not my dad!” Yells Dick. </p><p>“Your not my dad!” Yells Jason, years later. </p><p>He watches Jason stomp away, and he wonders. Dick had John Grayson and never needed another father. </p><p>But what is Willis Todd to Jason but an albatross still hanging around his neck. </p><p>Bruce has the paper drawn up before he asks Jason if he wants to be adopted. </p><p>It makes the paper the next day.</p><p>He gets the text that evening, written in English. He’s not sure Dick has ever written him anything in English. It has never been the language setting on his phone. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t what you wanted.” He isn’t sure what that means, and Bruce has never liked not knowing things. So he ignores it.</p><p>He doesn’t hear from Dick for a long time. </p><p>Jason still does, he gets texts in Greek and Latin ever once and a while that make him smile or laugh or frown or shake his head.</p><p>He calls Dick his brother as easy as ever. He doesn’t seem to know what to call Bruce, anymore. And that feels like as much of a rift as the familiar anger.</p><p>Neither Dick nor Jason tell him that Nightwing and the Titans have gone off to space. He reads it in a League report. </p><p>***</p><p>Adoption does not help Jason find peace. If anything, it throws him for a loop. No one see Bruce’s miscalculation until it is too late, of course, because no one is looking. Bruce, all logic, strategy, wisdom, rarely miscalculates in matter of his war. But Jason is not <em>just</em> a warrior. </p><p>Jason tries so desperately to understand who he is and where he comes from, how a son of Athena found himself on the streets of Gotham City.</p><p>Shelia Haywood isn’t a demigod, and she certainly isn’t a goddess, but she can manipulate the mist, and when Jason meets her and sees grey eyes, he thinks maybe, finally he’ll get some answers. </p><p>What Jason gets is a crowbar, spiders, and a bomb. </p><p>Jason dies. </p><p>***</p><p>What Bruce gets is the body of a boy who was half brother and half son and all Bruce’s responsibility. </p><p>He looks into a physician's cure. He re-reads the myth of Orpheus. Alfred shuts him down, more upset than Bruce has ever known. “It won’t work,” he says, again and again, “So many heroes stories end in tragedy, but I can’t have it happen to you, too.”</p><p>What Bruce gets is a reason, the first time in his life, to pray, to his mother and to Hades, for Elysium. </p><p>***</p><p>Barbara hits every target she aims for. Barbara sees everything coming. </p><p>Except for the most important things: her becoming the target.</p><p>***</p><p> Bruce Wayne is a son of Athena. He’s never weaved anything before he weaves a funeral shroud for Jason Todd, part brother, part son, part partner, part soldier. </p><p>The word robin in the Ancient Greek Jason loves so much. He uses silken thread in red and yellow and green.</p><p>Dick comes back after they’ve burnt the shroud. It is the first time Bruce believes Dick might truly never forgive him. </p><p>***</p><p>There would be no more Robins, no more little brothers for Bruce. No more sons and no more soldiers.</p><p>He promises it. He swears it.</p><p>It is lucky, Alfred will think later, Bruce doesn’t know to swear it on the River Styx.</p><p>***</p><p>A blond man in a white coat and scrubs comes to Barbara’s hospital room. He’s not her doctor. It is night, she’s kicked Bruce out of her room already, but this man has a strange glow about him. </p><p>Barbara has never met a god before, but she knows one when she sees one. </p><p>“I don’t think I’m in much shape for a quest.” She tells him. Everything she knows about the world of Greek gods and heroes she learned from Bruce or from guesses. She knows she’s a demigod, but she’s never sought the life of that kind of hero. She became the Gotham kind of hero instead. She and Dick use to make a game out of guessing who her mother was. Sometimes they’d pick a letter and try to come up with every goddess they could think of starting with that letter, and how Babs could be related. She was fierce in battle like Nike. She was petty like Nemesis.  All Gotham vigilantes must have a little bit of Nyx in them. They’d almost made a game out of guessing if it was Roger or Thelma who strayed, but they’d decided it had to be Roger. She looked to much like Dad, like Jim, to not be a Gordon to her core. </p><p>“No,” the god agrees, “You aren’t in any shape for a quest.” He picks up the chart at the end of her bed, scanning it with a practiced eye. “But I also don’t think your situation is so hopeless.” </p><p>“That’s not what the doctors say.”</p><p>He grins, “Oh, don’t listen to them. Trust me, I’m <em>the</em> doctor.”</p><p>“Asclepius?” Babs guesses, but no, the glow isn’t just divine. It’s warm. Like the sun, “Apollo.” It isn’t a question. “Why are you here.” </p><p>Apollo smiles, “Athena gets all the credit for the smart ones,” He rolls his eyes, “But you could match any one of them.” He glances out the window. The Batsignal is lit. She gave up that life even before all of this. It seems so far away now. “So I want to offer you a choice.” </p><p>He sets her chart down, and stands next to her bed. “I can return the use of your legs,” he says, and then lays a finger on her lips before she can say anything. His hand is warm, the sun on her face. “I can return the use of your legs, Barbara, but your life going forth will be a small, simple one. You’ll never again take down a criminal, or kill a monster, or be any kind of hero. Perhaps you could find purpose in that life. But you will have to work for it among the quiet and the dull. You will never make a name for yourself. You will never impress. You will never reach your full potential. You will never be extraordinary.” </p><p>The thrill of being a Gotham vigilante had given way to the muck and the grime of it all. And so she had scaled back. And yet the fear of the ordinary has followed her. He lists it out and it makes her blood, blood of mortals and ichor of gods, run cold. She is not meant to be cold. </p><p>But it seems all wrong. This is what he promises if she wants some divine healing? </p><p>“What’s the choice?” She asks, “How is that any different than if you don’t heal me?”</p><p>“If you reject my offer of healing, Barbara, then you will become one of the greatest heroes of this age.” </p><p>“That doesn’t make sense.” </p><p>Apollo laughs. It is as as warm as the rest of him. She has read stories of plague arrows and dead lovers, but she feels none of that form him. </p><p>“Jim,” He says Dad’s name softly, dreamily, wistfully “was a brilliant sniper. And you are just like him. You hit every thing you aim at. Pick a spot in the future and see what is coming for you.” </p><p>She doesn’t need to close her eyes, but she looks. Computers are in her future, and range weapons she’s never really delved into. Information is in her future. And vision, so much vision. She can hear the hum of the computers, see the green light, like old vapors sent by the gods, this god, to guide mortals of the old world. </p><p>“What beautiful music,” Apollo says approvingly, bopping his head along to the future hum of computers Barbara Gordon hasn’t built yet, “You can guide the world. You can lead the way.” </p><p>“I choose that,” Babs says, maybe too quickly. </p><p>Apollo nods, and then leans down and presses a kiss on her forehead. “Then go forth. Barbara Gordon. And do so with the blessings of your father.”</p><p>***</p><p>The Joker never shows up in Gotham again, after he killed a son of Athena and crippled a daughter of Apollo. </p><p>Bruce wonders and Dick wonders and Barbara wonders and Jim gives thanks. </p><p>No body is found. </p><p>It is as though someone had ordered him dead, and he had been gone. </p><p>***</p><p>Janet remembers a woman with gray eyes, an owl necklace, and many nights of deep conversation. She does not remember a lot about Tim’s birth. </p><p>Neither Jack nor Janet have any ability to see through the Mist. They’ll never know this, and will assume that the stress of the baby’s arrival has blurred the memories of a pregnancy and birth that didn’t actually happen. </p><p>But if anyone was ever a brain child, it is Timothy Jackson Drake. Even though Janet has to hire a specialist in teaching dyslexic children to help him overcome such an ‘obstacle.’</p><p>He never comes to love reading, but he doesn’t let it stop him from practically downloading all sorts of information. He listens to the radio and watches documentaries and he looks around him, see everything. He calculates and calculates and calculates.</p><p>He calculates when he watches Mary and John Grayson fall to their deaths. He’s fascinated by flying and he begins taking pictures of birds at night. Jack Drake rolls his eyes and Janet Drake is bemused. Tim fills his walls with pictures of owls. </p><p>And then he fills his walls with an even better flying creatures, Batman and Robin. </p><p>He watches and he learns and he figures out several important things. Like that Dick Grayson is Robin so his neighbor is Batman. And that Jason Todd has replaced Dick, who is Nightwing. </p><p>That Robin has died and that is why Batman is spiraling. </p><p>He does not figure out several other important things.</p><p>***</p><p>Dick Grayson’s little brother is dead, and his...and Bruce didn’t even bother to tell him.</p><p>And when some rich kid from Gotham crashes Dick’s freaking circus, he has every intention of telling the kid to screw off. </p><p>He’s done with Robin. And he so wants to be done with Gotham and Bruce. He can’t bring himself to completely seal himself away from it though. </p><p>And then he finally looks at the kid, really sees his face, and the bottom drops out of the world.</p><p>This kid, who’s put together enough of a logic puzzle to figure out Batman’s secret identity, has gray eyes that Dick knows better than anything else.</p><p>And it kills him, but he has too, dammit, he just has too. Another brother, another son of Athena.</p><p>He can’t turn his back on this kid any more then he can really turn his back on Bruce. </p><p>He’ll be there if Bruce needs him, but it won’t be in a Robin costume. </p><p>Robin’s changed anyhow. Once it was is in honor of his true mother, but now it seems it will be a mantle for the sons of Athena. </p><p>Gray eyes meet gray eyes, Dick lays a hand on Tim Drake’s shoulders, and he gives his new brother a blessing. </p><p>***</p><p>It will be many years until Bruce can see it clearly, and many years more until he has the self awareness to admit it, even just to himself, but Tim Drake only becomes Robin because he’s a son of Athena. </p><p>He would not have believed in the boy at all, if he hadn’t been. </p><p>Even so, it is a hard sell, many long months of grueling work. </p><p>Tim’s grey eyes are a hindrance at first. Too much like Jason’s, too much like like trauma and feelings Bruce is trying so hard to suppress. </p><p>But Tim’s different, too. </p><p>Different from Jason, but different from Dick and Bruce as well. </p><p>He’s got the same keen mind and the same sharp eyes. He might be better at the logic puzzles then Bruce was as a kid. </p><p>He’s also the first one to take any interest in Athena. </p><p>Neither Bruce nor Dick nor Jason have ever met the woman who birthed them from her brain. Bruce and Dick have never really wanted to, and Jason only learned to later, when things he thought were sure became unstable. </p><p>Tim, who has two parents alive right next door, take to the idea of his secret mother with an unexpected gusto. </p><p>He prays to her, sometimes, he makes offerings of food. He buys a lot of t-shirts with owls on them. </p><p>“You’ve never wished you were secretly adopted?” Tim asks Dick, which might be a little stupid, because Jason was secretly adopted, and that got him killed. Dick forgives him because his brother is wise and clever, but also 13, so not always smart.</p><p>Only The Oracle seems to understand him in this. Tim’s been told she too is a demigod, but that she doesn’t know who her real mother is. He has also been told she can’t actually see the future. </p><p>Tim comes to believe that neither of those things are true.</p><p>Barbara Gordon loves the commissioner and says she doesn’t care about having a mother, but sometimes Tim mentions Athena, and Babs looks out the window, and he knows she’s remembering something she hasn’t shared. </p><p>Sometimes Tim mentions wanting to meet Athena and Babs says “one day.” </p><p>***</p><p>The impact is jarring, but the brick hits him at just a lucky spot, it throws him off, it hurts like hell, but it didn’t break his nose or crack his eye socket. </p><p>“You need to put some ice on that before it bruises,” Spoiler says after she drops the brick, “Wouldn’t want to ruin your pretty face.”</p><p>Her blonde hair glows in the moonlight as she runs off in the night. Tim is smitten. </p><p>Tim tracks her down. She’s the daughter of Cluemaster, but Tim has never heard anyone speak with such vitriol about a parent, before. </p><p>Tim regularly finds himself wondering what on earth Pallas Athena could have ever wanted with Jack Drake, regularly tries to make Athena and Janet both work in his head and his heart.</p><p>Stephanie just hates Arthur Brown, and she is determined to bring him down. </p><p>Bruce is skeptical at best about it all. </p><p>And when Arthur Brown is no longer an issue, he’s down right against it all. </p><p>***</p><p>Stephanie Brown is an incredible gymnast, solid in a fight, and has a sharp eye for details. </p><p>When she gets a birdarang off Robin, she’s a natural. </p><p>If you get a cut or strain a muscle on patrol, you might want to hope she’s near. She’s the only one who remembers to keep her belt’s medical supplies up to date. </p><p>She swings around the city in homemade purple costumes and she’s unpolished and untrained. But she is enthusiastic.</p><p>Bruce doesn’t want her in Gotham. </p><p>He insists to Tim, to Dick, to Alfred, to Barbara that is because she’s angry and dramatic. She doesn’t follow orders.</p><p>Only Alfred ask if perhaps Stephanie’s parentage is the problem. He does not ask, straight out if it is because Stephanie isn’t a demigod.</p><p>Batman insists that Stephanie's family isn’t a problem. That he would never judge him about that. </p><p>***</p><p>Bruce Wayne, son of Athena, is a fucking liar.</p><p>***</p><p>Bruce Wayne is the father/brother/partners of a boy who had a criminal for a father and an addict for a mother. Bruce Wayne isn’t always honest with himself. </p><p>Once a boy without polish but a lot of heart and good instincts, a boy who loved Gotham and wanted to do the right thing, was dressed in bright colors and fought on the streets of Gotham. </p><p>He died. </p><p>Bruce Wayne doesn’t want love his brother, he wants to mourn the loss of a soldier. Bruce Wayne wants it to hurt less. </p><p>Bruce Wayne doesn’t want another dead child on his hand.</p><p>Bruce Wayne loves to learn, but he’s never learned how to deal with trauma or express himself. </p><p>He’s trying to do better with the brothers he has left, with Dick and Tim.</p><p>So Stephanie Brown takes the brunt of the trauma he can’t work through.</p><p>She keeps fighting anyway, through all sorts of things. </p><p>And Bruce kind of hates her for it. </p><p>***</p><p>Bruce and Barbara have seen a lot of great fighters and warriors in their time. This girl is something different. </p><p>She doesn’t speak, but she understands. She’s got a kind face and a gentle disposition. </p><p>She also has never lost a fight, at least as far as they have seen.</p><p>Bruce knows killer instincts and Babs knows fights for survival. That isn’t what this is. </p><p>Sometimes, when Bruce sees her take down a mugger, he sees a flash of something in her eyes that is familiar. </p><p>Her eyes are not gray. </p><p>She is not a daughter of Athena. </p><p>She’s kind and powerful and brilliant, but what exactly she is, isn’t clear. </p><p>***</p><p>David Cain and Lady Shiva plot, together. They a plan for a child they can make the perfect weapon. And then they go about seducing a goddess to make it possible. Something strong and unbeatable. Victory herself. Shiva gets the goddess, but David gets the girl, when she's born. He does not name her, but he does mold her into the weapon he's worked so hard to produce. She doesn't get a name for a long time. Not until she meets a woman with a gift of foresight and a deadly aim, even without her legs. Then she gets named Cassandra, an apology, of sorts, for the sins of a father that a woman who calls herself Oracle only met once, and loves despite herself.</p><p>***</p><p>Cassandra doesn’t speak, and attempting to communicate with her that way doesn’t produce a lot of success. Her brain isn’t wired that way. </p><p>Then, Dick comes back with a bullet wound in the arm and while Alfred is cleaning it, he swears something terrible in Ancient Greek he sometimes pretends Donna taught him in mixed company. </p><p>Cassandra looks at him from where she is moving on the map, and for the first time, she seems to grasp something like language. </p><p>It has always been a possibility in the back of everyone’s head. </p><p>They don’t try to teach her English until they’ve gotten her to be able to grasp Greek. But it messes with her fighting. She learned to fight one way, learned language antithetical to this. Its hard and dangerous. </p><p>And Cassandra has a drive too, deep down and dangerous, a flaw, Alfred calls it. A desire to be the absolute best. </p><p>“Such things can be fatal to heroes,” He tells her one evening, pulling shrapnel from her back. He does not tell her that he fears for the day Bruce’s hubris is his own undoing. </p><p>She goes to Shiva anyway. Learns to fight and does not learn to kill. </p><p>She’s heard the word demigod, she knows it applies to Batman and the Robins, to Barbara, to herself. </p><p>She does not ask who she is. </p><p>***</p><p>It is on a dark rooftop, in the middle of the night, when Cassandra first spars with Stephanie Brown. When Stephanie loses, badly, just a few moves in. She's sprawled in a heap on the roof, she has a smile like sunshine. It grows impossibly brighter when Cassandra agrees to train her. </p><p>A few weeks later, Cassandra brings her a note, and they strike a deal. </p><p>Lessons for lessons. Reading for combat. </p><p>It becomes apparent that Stephanie will never be as good as Cassandra is at fighting, but she never thought she would be. She’s rough and full of potential, and under Cassandra, she gets better. </p><p>She used to read her mom’s nursing textbooks for fun, or when she was locked in the closet and hadn’t remembered to put one of her books in there earlier for such an occasion. She applies Cassandra’s techniques with that old knowledge of the body. She’s good at hitting the right spot, she works at making sure she does it hard enough to hurt the other guy, and not so bad to hurt herself. </p><p>Cassandra struggles with reading more. Stephanie has the primer for martial arts. She’s a gymnast, and use to take karate at the community center. But she attacks it with gusto. </p><p>And Stephanie is a patient teacher. </p><p>“I think you might be dyslexic.” She explains, one day, “It's not a big deal, I can help with that, too.”</p><p>She lets Cass practice on her only Nancy Drew, because Stephanie has a lot of them, and who doesn’t love a spunky girl detective. But she also has Cassandra work through some of her books of poetry. She watched a documentary once about how poetry and music can help people with brain damage re-learn things. Cassandra has to create new neural pathways, but she’s not the kind of person to ever give up, even when its hard. Especially when it is hard. </p><p>She does sometimes stare at Stephanie’s old beat up sneakers, or reach out and run a finger down the check mark. </p><p>“Gotta love Nike and her swoosh,” Stephanie says.</p><p>“Nike?” Cassandra isn’t sure she’s heard the word before, but she likes it. </p><p>“The brand,” Stephanie says, “The name Nike comes from a greek goddess, she was the goddess of victory, hence the name for sportswear. The swoosh is supposed to be her wings.”</p><p>Bruce once told Cassandra not to ever tell Stephanie about the demigods. </p><p>Cassandra considers ignoring him now. She decides she’ll ask Barbara first. </p><p>She asks Alfred to buy her an outfit full of Nike gear in the meantime. The look he gives her when she asks isn’t hard to interpret. But he fulfills her request. </p><p>***</p><p>Bruce Wayne makes battle plans in his sleep. It is in his very nature.</p><p>When he loses Tim to Jack Drake, he implements a plan. </p><p>It was never really about Stephanie, so little ever is. Sometimes she plays Martha Wayne’s piano because it makes Bruce’s empty house feel lived in again. Sometimes she gets to be Robin, because it might make Tim jealous. </p><p>Bruce Wayne was once determined to not be a pawn of the gods. He should have realized the pawns he was making his own gaggle of heroic children.</p><p>Stephanie did not deserve any of it. </p><p>***</p><p>Bruce is almost, almost, almost impressed. His files have always been written in ancient greek. The gang plan is no different. Every file she’s been given before has been translated or had a source that isn’t bat. To do what she did, Stephanie would have had to translate it all, and Google translate didn’t have an Ancient Greek to English mode. </p><p>But given how horrendously everything backfired, on her and on him, he’s not in the mood to be impressed.</p><p>He wants to be angry. He wants to revel in being right about her. He wants to not have another broken child on his hands.</p><p>Stephanie Brown is dead.</p><p>***</p><p>There was a Jason in Mythology. He led a team of heroes and sailed through the Sea of Monsters and married a princess. </p><p>He abandoned his wife and killed harpies and let his children die. </p><p>He lost the favor of his patron and his happy ending. </p><p>Jason Peter Todd lost his happy ending too. </p><p>But when Death is chained a son of the underworld comes, and fully intends to give him another chance. </p><p>***</p><p>Jason Todd doesn’t really remember the Underworld. </p><p>“Only a child of Hades or Pluto would.” </p><p>He remembers dying and being back among the living, and he knows what Talia tells him. </p><p>He was left in the underworld, he was forgotten, he was replaced. </p><p>He tries to take comfort in the fact that the Joker is gone, but Talia’s spies say they are pretty sure Bruce had nothing to do with it. And Jason hates to admit that it sounds right.</p><p>Jason will imagine, for now, that Bruce avenged him. </p><p>He still kind of wants to kill the new kid, though. </p><p>***</p><p>Stephanie is Dead. </p><p>His Dad is dead. </p><p>Kon is dead.</p><p>Athena has never answered one of his prayers. </p><p>And now his dead brother, who he always dreamed up meeting, isn’t dead and kind of wants to kill him. </p><p>Tim spits the blood from his mouth and hates his life.</p><p>The new suit colors will hide the stab wound better.  </p><p>***</p><p>“You’re not my brother,” Jason growls out from behind the red mask as the stick connects with Tim’s nose. He’s nostalgic for Stephanie’s brick. “Whatever Bruce told you.”</p><p>“Take it up with Athena,” Tim manages to choke out. Batman would probably have wanted him to say something about real names in the field, but Tim isn’t feeling charitable to Bruce these days. </p><p>That, at least, caused Jason to stop hitting him. “Athena?”</p><p>“You know, greek goddess, wisdom, war, hates spiders. Your mother and mine.” Tim inches himself away from Jason, Jason doesn’t follow. </p><p>“You’re a son of Athena, too?” He finally asks, after several long minutes.</p><p>“Yeah,” Tim nods, “Dick wouldn’t have given me a second glance without it, let alone Bruce. I still basically had to beg.” He manages to actually stand up again, “It was really bad when you were gone. You didn’t know?”</p><p>Jason shook his head, “I...didn’t think about the implication of some things, it seems.”</p><p>He can’t see Tim’s eyes, and Tim can’t see his. The eyes of Athena have long been something her Gotham sons can come back to in each other. </p><p>He puts his escrima sticks away, in the little holsters on his utility belt. Tim wonders where he got it. Even when he’s been on the outs with Bruce, Tim had used his stuff, sometimes left in old storage caches and safe houses. Dick’s been in the business forever, is friends with everyone, can load up all over the place. But Jason was dead. Stephanie always had inferior equipment. Jason doesn’t. </p><p>His mind goes to work on the problem even as he asks. “Have you ever met her?”</p><p>Jason doesn’t say anything for a long time, but then shakes his head. “You.”</p><p>“No,” And then, because it's true, and just two minutes ago Jason was literally trying to kill him, so it can’t get worse, “I want to, though. I don’t think Bruce or Dick do.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jason nods. Though what he’s agreeing to isn’t clear. </p><p>He just walks away after that, he doesn’t even shoot a line and swing off, he just walked out of the ally and down the street. </p><p>He doesn’t try to Tim kill again. </p><p>Tim keeps wondering where his new, professional level set up comes from. </p><p>***</p><p>Stephanie Brown has never felt more alive. It's not a rush, exactly, because the work is hard, sometimes grueling and sometimes impossibly sad. But she meets a patient, takes their hands, and she knows she can help. She had spent many years asking her mother every question about medicine a nurse could answer, and a few more years doing what she could with the minor wounds of Gotham’s vigilantes. This is something she was meant for.</p><p>She’d never been out of Gotham in any kind of meaningful way, but the world is wide, she finds, as she assists Leslie. They travel throughout Africa, and it isn’t that Stephanie didn’t know it was a giant continent filled with all sorts of people, it's that what that might mean, when you look through the cracks isn’t just about people and places and cultures. </p><p>Gotham had its own versions of monsters and spirits, beyond the ones who dress up like clowns and beat kids to death, the ones with black skulls who use drills, but she learns about other kinds of magic. False magicians and Katavi. And when she sees a spirit rise up and protect people, then she knows what she has to do.</p><p>She doesn’t agree with Leslie’s choices, not really. She was halfway across the world before she found out she was alive but her life was over. Leslie’s never agreed with Bruce’s choices, doesn’t like the masks or the violence. But Leslie isn’t opposed to a little kidnapping of minors, apparently, and making them <em>her</em> assistant. </p><p>On the plane back to Gotham she thinks about her piano teacher when she’d been little. He’d been a bright young man, with shiny white teeth, cool sunglasses, and an enviably perfect tan. He was a brilliant musician, even on the cheap keyboard she’d learned to play on. He’d told her, every time she’s complained about the equipment, that humble beginnings can only help a hero. He’d told the story of Atalanta, to prove it. A princess abandoned and raised in the wilderness, who’d learned the ways of the hunt and of nature. She’d sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, she bested men in fights and hunts and foot races. </p><p>The Jason in Gotham is dead, but Stephanie learned Gotham from its dark underbelly, learned its music and its rhythms. She knows how to hunt in Gotham, like Atalanta knew the Grecian Wilderness of old. </p><p>Atalanta didn’t get all the chances she deserved. She was married off because of a trick and turned into a lion as a curse. </p><p>Stephanie’s been through a lot of cures and a lot of tricks. She won’t let this be the end of her story. </p><p>Mr. Fred believes in her. </p><p>***</p><p>Steph’s return is easy. </p><p>Or no, that’s not it at all. Steph’s return is impossibly hard. They go to school together now. And he uses the last name Wayne. He wishes he could explain about Athena to her, about Bruce and Jason and Dick. Maybe even about Barbara who she idolizes and Cassandra, who’s side she’s once again plastered to. Maybe then she’d understand his choices and Bruce’s actions and what’s happened. </p><p>The feelings of lying to her burns every day, more than it us too. </p><p>But, he understands the chain of events. The Jane Doe’s body, the time abroad. It all checks out and holds up to scrutiny. The logic of Stephanie’s return is easy. Despite the pain of it emotionally, he can take comfort in the facts. He can find some comfort in the simple logic of the hows and whys. </p><p>It's who Jason makes make no sense. He’s the real deal. They’ve done DNA tests and brain scans and he remembers everything to his death, but if he knows anything about the Underworld, Hades and wherever he might have gone, he’s not sharing. </p><p>And he’s also not sharing who started funding his new, criminal ventures in Gotham, before they become self funded, with crime.</p><p>Bruce disapproves, but Tim thinks about the plan that almost got Stephanie killed, and was meant to unite all of Gotham's underworld under Bruce, and is pretty sure he just doesn’t like not being in control. Jason doesn’t seem to have gone killer crazy, but some of his guys do, occasionally. And Tim knows Bruce, Batman, Matches, none of them could have made it zero bloodshed. </p><p>But Tim will leave his brothers to their personal politics. Tim has his own issues with Bruce he’s ignoring, thank you very much. He’s more interested in Jason’s economics. </p><p>He traces shipments of drugs and guns and other contraband. Half are dead ends, too well covered up by Jason, who might be rough and tumble and streetwise, but is every bit the son of Athena as the rest of them. He can plot and plan his way with the best of them. The other half is expected, Gotham stuff, normal connections and sources. Which means he needs to keep an eye on the cover ups, wait until one of Jason’s guys slips up, and Tim can see the cracks. </p><p>It takes months of following a bunch of false leads and at least one personal visit from Jason, who doesn’t try to kill him, but does say he should stop looking into it. </p><p>Tim looks harder, and closer at what comes right after that. </p><p>When he gets attacked by ninjas, he realizes the issue. And he’s touched that Jason might have been trying to protect him from the League of Assassins. </p><p>Tim Drake, Son of Athena, once figured out who Batman was because he couldn’t be bothered to take a hint and leave well enough alone. </p><p>He dives right in. </p><p>He does not find what they wanted with Jason, even if he finds pretty irrefutable proof they funded his early escapades back to life. </p><p>What he finds though, might actually be the only thing that could be a bigger deal. </p><p>***</p><p>Look, everyone does stupid shit in their early twenties, like taking in orphaned, demigod brothers, or dressing up as a bat to fight crime, or sleeping with terrifying Roman war goddesses who kind of hate your mother for her Greekness. Bruce, by some miracle or blessing or whatever, has managed to get through all of those mostly alright. The only real issue with that last one is probably the fact the resulting child got kidnapped by the league of assassins from the front porch of Wayne Manor where Victoria had left him and no one bothered to tell Bruce.</p><p>***</p><p>Damian Al Ghul is eight years old when his father and his father's brothers storm a compound to find him. </p><p>He’s known his father was Bruce Wayne for many years, and he’s known Bruce Wayne was Batman. He has been told other things, like his mother is Bruce’s one true love Talia Al Ghul, and he’s his grandfather Ra’s heir. </p><p>Only the first two are true, which he is told by a man in a black and blue costume, while his father grips a steering wheel too tightly, and another man in red leans out a window, shooting at the blazing compound that Damian had called home.</p><p>“But what does that mean, who is my mother?” He asks, because he can’t think of anything else.</p><p>“Victoria,” the man who introduced himself as Richard, but who Damian knows is Nightwing says, “The Goddess of Victory.”</p><p>Their is the sound of an explosion and the man with the guns sneers through his mask “Roman goddess of victory.”</p><p>***</p><p>Damian doesn't have the grey eyes of Athena, he's only a grandson, after all, but he's got a fierce glare, a swift kick, and a taste for blood. </p><p>His has also been told, recently, that his entire life was a lie. He is not the son of Talia al Ghul and Bruce Wayne, and he would never take over for Ra’s as the demon’s head. </p><p>Actually, he is the son of Bruce Wayne and the goddess Victoria. And Ra’s goal had been to steal Damian’s body for his own animus, when his own centuries old body finally gave out. </p><p>It would be a hard adjustment for anyone, even without the fact that they’d raised the poor kid to be a violent assassin. He’s been alternately tortured and told he was the most special child on the planet. It is really no wonder he is such a handful, even before you got to his brutal competitiveness, which had been poked and prodded for his life. </p><p>He'd have been heard enough, probably, on a gray eyed son of Athena who'd done this whole raise a kid who’s lost his whole world thing before. It is a shame that is not what is happening now.</p><p>Bruce is gone. </p><p>Tim insists that Bruce isn’t dead. Jason wants the cowl. Damian wants to kill Tim, and wouldn’t be opposed to killing Dick and Jason too.</p><p>He thinks, maybe, if Cassandra was around, she could do something, a daughter of Nike to a son of Victoria. But she’s taken off to Hong Kong of all places. Stephanie Brown is Batgirl in her place now, and Dick will get to that, he will, but one problem at a time. </p><p>Dick tries and he mostly succeeds. But it isn’t without casualties. The look Tim gives him when he gives Damian Robin. The fight with Jason where Dick decides he has to be Batman.  </p><p>With Damian, it helps that Bruce and Dick are actually related, even if the translations of brother/father and brother/uncle are hard for Damian to grasp. It doesn’t help with Tim and Jason. But one problem at a time. He trusts Tim won’t kill anyone. He tries to trust Jason won’t either. </p><p>Deprograming Damian, reminding him that he isn’t an al Ghul is a process. It’s a process, too, teaching him that he’s Damian Wayne, Son of Victoria, and that he gets to decide what that means. </p><p>But Dick doesn’t think he makes a half bad Robin, while he figures out what else he might be.</p><p>***</p><p>Everyone is still alive when Bruce comes back. </p><p>He didn’t really die, not like Jason. </p><p>Tim always insisted on it, but only Alfred had believed him. </p><p>***</p><p>The only reason the Batcave is still active is because Barbara and Stephanie moved in. Otherwise it might be shut in and shut up, like the manor upstairs, unlivable without at least a little bit of a production. And it is strange, with Bruce’s Batman Inc. plans, to think about opening the house again, when he won’t be living there, and neither with anyone else. </p><p>He’s not sure how he feels about the Batgirl Cave, he isn’t sure how he feels about Batgirl. His cheek still stings from her slap. But it is comforting to be able to use it, and not have to make a space for himself in Dick’s bunker. He’s not sure what it means to be in Gotham and feel superfluous. </p><p>He’s gathered the inner circle, as it were. His brothers, of course, Barbara and Cassandra, Stephanie, these days, and Damian, his son. </p><p>Alfred is the only one who doesn’t look at least a little put out to be there. </p><p>His trip through time had been...something else. </p><p>He’s had run ins with Demigods in the past, but he’s never been reliant on them, not like this. Finding some, gathering their help after every time jump, had saved his life. He’s always resisted that pull before, but he feels almost guilty about it, now that he’s back. He should make an anonymous donation to Camp Half-Blood, or something. A thank you, for services rendered, for kids who didn’t have his stubbornness, and didn’t ignore the will of the gods. </p><p>Dick is wearing a Batman suit. It isn’t much like his, but it still does something weird to his chest. He’s had other people cover for him. Dick’s covered for him. But this was no cover, and he doesn’t intend for it to be, going forward. </p><p>Tim’s got on a new costume, and is going by the name Night Owl, or something. That, too, does something strange to Bruce. He’s fought the Athena connection from the first. Tim’s always wanted to embrace it, but it doesn’t sit well with Bruce, a lot of the time. Now it is worse. He’d seen kids Tim’s age and younger die on their demigod quests on his trip through time, He doesn’t want that to be Tim’s path. </p><p>He’d heard once, “Give a god and inch, and they’ll take a mile.” He doesn’t want his brothers to get caught up in that, any more than he ever did. </p><p>Jason, at least, is still doing his Red Hood thing. Bruce never figured out if Jason is the reason the Joker has disappeared. But Alfred and Dick’s reports suggest that he isn’t going around and killing people willy nilly these days. So Bruce takes it as something like a win. </p><p>Then he gets to Damian. He’s going by Damian Wayne, these days, and Bruce has read all the news reports about Bruce Wayne’s secret love child. He doesn’t know what to think about him now. </p><p>He’s in a Robin costume, and stands at Dick’s side. He is the first Robin to not be a son of Athena. Bruce does not know if he likes it. </p><p>He’s read those reports, too. Dick and Barbara and Alfred all agree, he’s gotten better. He’s still competitive and desperate for victory, but he at least doesn’t think all battles have to be to the death, anymore, and he’s come to see something in his role as protector of Gotham. But he still aims to kill, he resists Dick’s mentorship and authority every day. And Bruce knows that he feels out of step with them all. Not a true brother to his fellow Robins, not as good as his half sister Daughter of Nike. Even Barbara and Stephanie have a rapport these days that Damian can’t get to with Dick. </p><p>“I might know a place where he could find some of the contentment he lacks.” Alfred had said last night, after Dick had given him another ‘i’m glad you aren’t dead’ hug. </p><p>“I’m not sending him to Camp Half-Blood,” Bruce had snapped. </p><p>Alfred had laughed, “No, that won’t do at all. When things have settled, when you are more use to your life, then we’ll talk about it.” </p><p>Bruce is a little afraid of what that could mean. </p><p>Still, no one has gotten into a fight yet today. Bruce has mostly finished sharing his bold new vision, as Jason very sarcastically puts it, and now they are just chatting about life and the job and the whatever in between. </p><p>Bruce considers leaving, and weighs Dick and Alfred and Barbara’s judgement against his desire to not make small talk with the others. </p><p>“Jason, when you are done with those gang files I want a look,” Stephanie calls over Cassandra’s shoulder. </p><p>Everyone is too well trained to freeze, but it is a near thing. Somehow, it has all come to this. Bruce glance and Barbara, who shrugs. She has translation algorithms in place for most things Stephanie has access to, but things Jason printed wouldn’t be in English. </p><p>Jason doesn’t look like a secret is about to be spilled, he just shakes his head, “They aren’t written in English.” Given that Jason’s childhood Spanish is the only language that any of them have ever managed to learn to read and write beyond Ancient Greek and Latin, Bruce hopes Stephanie will assume as much a look up her own information, in a perfectly not dead language, later.</p><p>Stephanie just raises a skeptical eyebrow, and then walks over to the leader of half of Gotham’s gangs, and rips the files from his hands. </p><p>“Yeah,” She says, after scanning, “All batfamily files are always written in Ancient Greek. What’s your point?”</p><p>The look Bruce trades with Barbara is baffled. </p><p>“You can read Ancient Greek?” Damian finally demands. </p><p>And then, in the language in question, Stephanie responds, roughly “Better than you, Latin boy.” She sticks her tongue out at a boy who is nearly ten years younger than she is, but then says, in English, “Not that I don’t know Latin, too. But I’m better at Greek.”</p><p>Bruce remembers looking over Stephanie’s school records and seeing As in her high school Latin classes once. That doesn’t explain any of this. Like how she knows Damian can handle the Greek but <em>is</em> much better in Latin. </p><p>“Is that a Pre-Med thing or what?” Tim asks, but Bruce doesn’t follow that half of the conversation. He’s looking at Barbara from some explanation. </p><p>Barbara is looking at Stephanie, likely for the same thing.</p><p>***</p><p>Here is an explanation:</p><p>Crystal wants to be a doctor.</p><p>But money is tight and Arthur is in and out of jail. And they're on and off again, always and forever. </p><p>She meets a doctor, once, during the off time. He's handsome and blond. Like if Arthur wasn't so...whatever was disappointing about Arthur that week. He fills her little apartment with music and tells her that she, too, would make a great doctor, if she'd only take the leap. And when she hems and haws, he rests a hand on her naked torso and says the next generation will have to manage it. He didn't even leave his phone number, and when she realizes she's pregnant, in a month time, Crystal sighs deeply and figures she and Arthur might as well get married. Maybe that will shape him up.</p><p>It doesn't, and every time she sees Stephanie play something on the little keyboard piano, sees her scan over Crystal's old nursing textbooks, sees her hundred watt smile, like the sun, well, then Crystal pops a pill. Because it is easier.</p><p>***</p><p>Here is an explanation:</p><p>When Stephanie Brown is three years old, she’s locked in a closet by Arthur Brown while her mother isn’t home. He does not let her out before he leaves to get into whatever business he has that evening. </p><p>The man who lets her out has her Dad’s blond hair, and her freckles. His yellow t-shirt has a sun on it. Stephanie likes his smile. </p><p>“Come on, Stephanie,” He says, offering her a hand and pulls her up and out. None of the lights in the house are on, and it is night time, but the house seems a brightly lit as it could be. “It's time for your music lesson.” </p><p>She does not know where the keyboard came from, but it feels right beneath her tiny fingers. </p><p>She learns to read music long before she learns to read her letters.</p><p>Music is easier, though her first grade teacher pings on her dyslexia early, and Stephanie spends the year staying late and learning tips and tricks to ease her into reading from an over eager teach for america student. But when Mr. Fred says they are going to learn to play and sing a song in Greek, it is much easier. </p><p>He doesn’t come every week, or even every month. But he comes when she almost can’t stand it anymore, even if she sometimes looks back and thinks it was only a dream. </p><p>He gives her a flashlight that never runs out of battery and she uses it to read in the closet. He adjusts her hands on the plastic keys and recounts the bones in the hand, the way that the muscles work. He gives her a knife as golden as the smile they share. It only works on some of the monsters she encounters, and when she complains to Mr. Fred that it does not work on her dad at all, he looks impossibly sad.</p><p>He stops coming when she’s twelve. The story of Atalanta and a kiss is all he leaves.</p><p>Stephanie Brown learns to fight because monsters were outside, but monsters were at home, too, and her knife only worked on the ones in the streets. </p><p>She hears the word demigod first in fifth grade English and then again from a harpy in Robinson Park. She puts enough together. </p><p>She guesses about the bats only when she becomes Robin and sees enough of the files to know they are written in Ancient Greek. Everything they share with her is in English, so she doesn’t make the truth known, maybe she can play it to her advantage, one day. Like when she steals a plan to subdue the gangs in Gotham, which is also written in Greek. </p><p>And then it doesn’t seem like something to bring up anymore. </p><p>In the years that follow, it is just another secret Stephanie keeps. And it feels good, because it might be the only one she knows that Bruce doesn’t. </p><p>It hangs over her, when he dies, when Tim falls apart, when Cass leaves. The others hate her, secret or no.</p><p>She’s sitting on a rooftop as the sun comes up, holding a cowl she isn’t sure she deserves. She doesn’t see him appear, but she knows when he does. It takes her a long time to look at him. He hasn’t changed at all since she was twelve. He might actually be younger than her, now. </p><p>Physically, at least. He is thousands of years old. </p><p>“Apollo,” Stephanie says. “I’m not locked in a closet, so you don’t have to come and save me.”</p><p>He still smiles,“The sons of Athena really do not give you your due.” Then his smile turns sad, “I’m sorry, Stephanie. I wasn’t fair to you. I wasn’t all you needed. Gods have rules, you know, about how much we can interfere with our demigod children , but the truth is we often side with far far too little.”</p><p>“I didn’t know Gods’ could apologize.” Stephanie says, instead of accepting.</p><p>“No,” Apollo agrees, “we aren’t very good at it. But I’ve been through a lot of changes recently, and I’m trying to do better.”</p><p>Dawn continues to creep past them, even though the sun god is by her side. Their legs swing over the side of the building, keeping in time with the rhythm of Gotham City.</p><p>“Why are you here?” </p><p>“I’m trying to check on all of my children.” He says, “you won’t believe it, but I saw you more growing up then most of your brothers or sisters.”</p><p>Stephanie believes him, “that’s pathetic.”</p><p>He laughs, it’s nice “Isn’t. I want to do better, I’m going to try to do better going forward.” He reaches out and takes her hand, squeezes it, “I know things are hard, now.”</p><p>“I’m lying to my mom, the Bats all hate me, I’m not making grades good enough for med school.” Stephanie sighs, “for me, that’s barely medium mode.”</p><p>“It isn’t a contest, and it certainly isn’t a contest with your past.” Apollo says. “You’ll have to tell your mother one day.”</p><p>“Does she know..?”</p><p>“She doesn’t want to know, Stephanie.” Apollo says, “She doesn’t mean to lie about that.” </p><p>Stephanie loves her mother more than anyone in the whole world, but sometimes the resentment burns low in her belly, Arthur Brown, a man tied to mother and daughter for no reason.</p><p>“As for your grades, they’ll even out, Stephanie. I promise you will get into med school if I have to come down every Wednesday to be your study buddy.” Stephanie lets out a little sound between a scoff and a laugh. “I’m serious, call, pray, whatever you need. We will pull microbiology all-nighters.”</p><p>“Microbiology isn’t the problem. Maybe philosophy or English.” </p><p>“We’ll figure something out.” He promises, “as for the rest of the Gotham brood…”</p><p>“They are Athena’s kids, then?” Stephanie has suspected as much for a long time. Those grey eyes and sharp minds are hard to miss. </p><p>“Yes,” Apollo agrees. “Most of them. But I have another child in Gotham, just one other, A daughter, very much like you.” He points across the skyline. Stephanie has no problem following him aim. He isn’t pointing to Wayne tower, he’s pointing to the clock tower.</p><p>“Barbara.” And Stephanie almost can’t believe it. Barbara Gordon, Oracle, is just about the most perfect person Stephanie has ever met. It is easy to believe that she, too, is a demigod, but that she has the same godly parent as Stephanie seems ludicrous.</p><p>“Your sister.” Apollo says, “will come around soon, I promise. Her vision is cloudy now. I’m going to talk to her soon.”</p><p>“Tell her the class fuck up is wearing her mantle now and that, surprise, you’re a big sister.”</p><p>“I wasn’t going to tell her. And I think you might find it worth your while not too, either.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t it make things easier?” Stephanie asks. She’s always wanted a sister. She knows the codes to get into the clock tower. She wants to go and announce herself now.</p><p>“Not now, I don’t think. As much as brotherhood has helped your Batman and his Robins, it has hurt them too.” Stephanie thinks about how Tim talks about his brothers sometimes and she believes it. “Trust me, get to know her on different terms first.”</p><p>“But..”</p><p>“How about this, if you keep it a secret, one day I see you’ll deliver the punchline, and it will land really well.”</p><p>“Are you the god of comedy, now?”</p><p>“I’ll have you know that I taught Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, everything she knows, and she and I are very close and…”</p><p>He doesn’t just disappear. He says goodbye and promises it is not forever, or even for long.</p><p>And he’s right about the punchline landing.</p><p>***</p><p>“There is a camp,” Alfred Tells both Bruce and Dick, because they have the same stakes Damian’s success, “That I think would suit Master Damian.”</p><p>“Camp Half-Blood…”</p><p>Alfred cuts him off “Is for Greek Demigods, I mean to send Master Damian to his Roman, brethren.” </p><p>He explains about Camp Jupiter. </p><p>“He just shows up and joins the Roman legion?”</p><p>“No,” Alfred said, “He’ll go to the wolf house and have to prove himself. But he will, of course, and then he’ll go to Camp Jupiter and join the legion.”</p><p>They discuss it a lot, and they discuss it with Damian, too. Something about joining an army of fellow Roman demigods sparks something in him. Bruce and Dick don’t get it.</p><p>“You’re Greek.” Alfred points out. </p><p>And when things are agreed upon and decided, Alfred sits down and writes a letter of introduction. </p><p>He signs it </p><p>Alfred Pennyworth, Son of Pluto</p><p>Former Centurion </p><p>Fifth Cohort   </p><p>***</p><p>Alfred Pennyworth has kept his Legion tattoo under a crisp uniform for many years, but it wasn’t always like that.</p><p>Tom once said the tattoo, and its cryptic information, added to his mysterious air. He had asked about it, that first night in London, running his finger along the ten lines. Alfred claims it was from his military service. He stands by this claim.</p><p>When Tom fell in love the Greek goddess of Wisdom, he  remembers his father’s old warnings about the separations of the two camps. And he hides the history of Rome away from his new step-son, son’s, curious eyes. He doesn’t even comment about Minerva having children.</p><p>The role of a retired legionnaire is always to be an advisor to the new generations of heroes. Alfred takes this role seriously, but he always assumed his children would be legacies of Pluto. He also assumed he’d have a partner.</p><p>Tom dies and Alfred performs funeral rites and does not know what the future holds.</p><p>More sons of Athena, as it turns out. </p><p>Alfred loves them all fiercely. For them he will kill a monster more deadly them any hydra or chimera. He’ll look the Joker straight in his eyes and dispatch him to the underworld. When word reaches him that Death has been chained, he will return to his father’s domain and being Jason back, though he loses the boy to the Assassins for a brief time.</p><p> He loves Miss Barbara and Miss Cassandra and Miss Stephanie too, though he will not peg her for a long time.</p><p>But when Bruce brings home a young boy with Tom’s eyes and Latin on his tongue, Alfred will feel the pull of a child of Rome. </p><p>He has been proud of his family many times, but nothing compares to writing his grandson’s letter of introduction.</p><p>***</p><p>Bruce is expecting Diana and her party. The cave is pretty full today. Damian is in San Francisco, sometimes being a Roman Legionnaire and sometimes bossing around a group of Teen Titans. But Dick and Barbara are sparing, Tim and Jason are arguing at the lab stations, and Stephanie is reapplying some of Cassandra’s bandages. Alfred is dusting the Dinosaur.</p><p>Everyone has masks on, because Diana hadn’t been clear about who she was bringing. They step through the League Teleporter, and none of the family stop their activities, though Bruce knows they’ve all turned their attention to the new guests. </p><p>Diana is dressed in her costume, but there's a smile on her face. So whatever the situation that she needs help with is, she isn’t so worried. Her friend looks deceptively normal for a second. She’s tall, with dark hair held back in a sharp, high ponytail. She’s wearing dark jeans, sensible flats, and a crisp white blouse. But something about her...Bruce has met all sorts of incredible people and beings throughout his life and his world, universe, and multiverse travels. This woman is powerful.</p><p>Diana ushers her forward, to where Bruce is sitting at the computer. Diana has never commented on the original language of all Batcave files. Perhaps because she can speak to all languages and doesn’t notice, perhaps because elements of man’s world still elude her, or perhaps because elements of Bruce elude her, and she’s just going with it now. </p><p>Bruce meets the women’s eyes just before Diana says “Lady Athena, this is Batman. Batman, this is Lady Athena, Goddess of Wisdom.”</p><p>All other activity in the case ceases, even Alfred has stopped his dusting.</p><p>Athena stares at Batman, as though waiting for him to do something. He stands still, passive. </p><p>The machinery in the cave hums around them, but no other sound fills the cold, tense air. </p><p>“We were hoping,” Diana began, clearly sensing the tension, but not sure what it was and so plunging ahead, “We were hoping you could help Lady Athena with a problem she’s been having.” </p><p>Bruce looks to her, “Problem?”</p><p>Diana looks back at Athena, “Yes, something was stolen from her and…”</p><p>“I believe,” Alfred cut in, and his voice was as sharp as anything Bruce has ever heard, “Camp Half Blood is that way.” He even points towards Long Island. “You’ll find the kind of heroes you are in need of there, I’m sure.” </p><p>Athena’s gray eyes flash, but Alfred has seen those gray eyes flash many many times, and it has lost any and all meaning to him.</p><p>“Is there a problem?” Diana asks. The rest of the kids have slowly and quietly shuffled forward. “Because we could leave.”</p><p>Athena let out the same little huff Tim did when he was feeling particularly put upon and crosses her arms like Dick does when he’s leading a team of impulsive teenagers and he is about to explain that he isn’t angry, just disappointed. </p><p>“We do not need to leave,” Athena says, “My son seems to be employing a Son of Pluto as some sort of attack dog. I have no intention of paying it any mind.” </p><p>“You son?” Diana is a sharp woman, and glances around the cave, taking in a group of people she’s met many times before, “a Son of Pluto.”</p><p>So Bruce pulls off his cowl, and with it the white eye lenses. </p><p>He hears Diana’s little gasp, and knows she’s put everything together. </p><p>“Alfred,” He says, and the son of Pluto thing is strange on many levels. He’s always thought those big three kids were too powerful, and that Alfred can raise the dead, can control ghosts, is a disturbing feet. With all the loss in their lives, it has disturbing implications. Ignoring the hard stuff is one of the ways Bruce has managed to make it this long. “does have a point. I believe all your preferred questers are probably there. What could we help you with.”</p><p>Athena’s eyes scan the rest of them, but they land on Bruce whose head is still raised in challenge. </p><p>“I have already had my spear retrieved,” She finally admits. “I wish to not have it taken again, and Diana suggests that you are the smartest man she knows, and have some expertise in security, so you might have some advice on how to prevent its thrift again.” She looks over them again, or at least over Bruce and Dick and Jason and Tim, “And I’ll admit to having some interest in my sons, and this strange cult you’ve set up.” </p><p>Bruce turns back to his computer, “We’ll see what suggestions we can make,” he says, sitting down in the chair. The rest of the kids hurry around him, Alfred has disappeared, either to get refreshments or because he doesn’t want to be in the goddesses presence. </p><p>“What can you tell me about your current security set up.”  Bruce asks, as he brings up a simulation program he runs for theft, sometimes. </p><p>“Most people are far too afraid of our wrath to do something so blatant.” Athena says, “I mostly leave my spear near my throne.” She says it casually, like that isn’t a ridiculous idea. Leaving superpowered objects just laying around is practically asking for them to get stolen. </p><p>“Didn’t someone steal Zeus’s thunderbolt from that same throne room just a few years ago?” Stephanie asks. </p><p>Athena glares at her, but Stephanie’s eyes are innocent and questioning when she returns her gaze, though Bruce has no idea what she is talking about. </p><p>“You are one of Apollo’s, yes,” Stephanie nods in acknowledgement, and Bruce quickly scans the others, only Barbara and Cassandra don’t look surprised. She’s admitted to being a demigod, but Bruce had been sure she didn’t have any idea who her godly parent was. </p><p>“He comes and we do karaoke sometimes, we get all the good stories.” Stephanie says.</p><p>“His rendition of Hallelujah brought an Applebees to tears last month,” Barbara puts in.</p><p>“He’s always been a bit of a loose cannon,” Athena says, “and these days he’s paying far too much attention to his mortal children. His little trip to the mortal world has yielded very unsatisfactory results.” </p><p>Stephanie’s smile does not waver, “Well, he no longer leaves his lyre or bow laying around where anyone might steal it.”</p><p>“It is true, my lady,” Alfred says, appearing out of the shadows with a platter full of tea cups, “That though unlikely, any hero with enough nerve can try to steal a symbol of power.” He offers Athena a cup that might actually be gold, Bruce does not recognize it, “It is Nectar.” He tells her, and then provides tea for everyone else. </p><p>“I believe your father’s helm was also stolen, Son of Pluto.” Athena says. </p><p>“Indeed,” Alfred acknowledges, “Though Unlike Miss Stephanie, I cannot say if he chooses different security methods these days. Nor what Lord Jupiter, that is to say, Lord Zeus, might do.”</p><p>Athena purses her lips at the critique, and Bruce is reminded of Jason this time, barely contained anger, but the surefire knowledge that the fight should not be started. She just drinks her nectar and redirects her attention at Bruce. Bruce turns to Dick, Jason, and Tim, who are all staring at their mother. None of them freeze, he trained freezing out of them a very long time again, but now they seem lost. </p><p>“Well, if you don’t want to do as, um Apollo, does, and not leaving it out anymore because it might seem, <em>erroneously</em>, obviously, like you are afraid of it being stolen, you’ll need some sort of stealth security.” Tim says, “Something that can’t be seen or sensed by outside forces, but that alert you and even defend itself if left alone.”</p><p>“Maybe security cameras, or the godly equivalent.” Jason says, “you have a throne, maybe you can incorporate them into it.”</p><p>“Or,” Dick offers, “you could, um, enchant, I guess, your spear itself, so it had like an alarm, or even a repelling function of some sort. So if anyone but you touches it they get captured in turn, or something.” </p><p>“You could even incorporate the two.” Bruce advises, “Cameras or sensors and making the spear itself part of the defense would serve different purposes.” </p><p>Athena nods, her eyes scanning them again. “I appreciate your council, my sons.” She hands the cup back to Alfred, clearly done with them. </p><p>“That’s it?” Tim says, and it's clear from the way his eyes bug, that he spoke before thinking. But Bruce cannot fault him. He knows that Tim, more than anyone, has searched for the woman in front of them for a long time. He’s offered her more than the rest of them combined. It does seem terribly unfair that she’s only here for advice that she could have figured out on her own, if she was a little less preoccupied with her own infallibility. Perhaps, Bruce also has a little bit of her in him. </p><p>“Yes, Timothy Drake, I believe that is all for today.” She looks them over again, this time giving the girls and Alfred a glance as well, “But we will see each other again, My son. I promise you that.” It might be reassurance, or it might be a threat. "I will see all my sons again."</p><p>“Look away,” Barbara advises, and Bruce sees the brightest of lights out of the corner of his eye. </p><p>And then his mother is gone from his life once again. He and his little brothers just stand and sit there in silence for a long time. Cassandra occasionally gives them pats on the bat. Alfred refills their tea. Stephanie and Barbara exchange a few words about Apollo that Bruce doesn’t fully catch.</p><p>“Wow,” Stephanie says after Diana has left, with many apologies, “That explains so much about all of you. And your problems with emotional openness.”</p><p>***</p><p>They all see her again. But that isn’t what is important. </p><p>Demigods live in packs. And the batfamily is a pack of Demigods like any other. Sometimes they fight ancient monsters on the streets of Gotham with imperial gold and celestial bronze knives they keep in their utility belts. But mostly they fight the monsters of the human world. They lean on each other. They don’t die, mostly. </p><p>Bruce plots and plans. Sometimes Diana stares at him from across the Watchtower with something between understanding and fear. With enough prep time, and his brothers by his side, Batman could take down the Olympians. Maybe, she thinks, this is why Athena stays away. Because though the thought has occurred to Bruce, he saw no need to act on it. </p><p>Dick leads his little makeshift armies, and wins those battles. He has as many plans as any of his brothers, but he flips and shifts them on the fly. He plays the part of the airhead playboy even better than Bruce, uses it as an excuse to lend a hand and lead teams who need it. He also cracks jokes in Ancient Greek with socialite and humanitarian Donna Troy, leading to a lot of confusion from a lot of elitist assholes, who want to know where the airhead carney who dropped out of college and can’t hold down a job learned dead languages. </p><p>Cassandra Wayne is photographed by paparazzi for months wearing nothing but Nike athleisure. Everything she wears sells out. She gets a bunch of free clothing from much higher end brands, with notes about status and style, and she gives them all to Stephanie. She gets offered a seven figure Nike sponsorship deal. She turns it down, and wears the wings of victory around town. She competes with herself, and works to be better. And when she fails, she brushes herself off and remembers that there is always tomorrow to try again. She also takes out a few muggers, she never loses to muggers. </p><p>Jason Todd is the only one who ever gets the story from Alfred about the Joker. He plans his smaller, stealthier take over of Gotham with that in mind. He cannot remember the underworld. Does not even know if he went to Asphodel, the fields of punishment, or Elysium. But the threat of death, its seriousness hang over him. He is not so opposed to it as Bruce, but he does not treat it lightly, sees it in his plans and thinks twice. He is a child of wisdom, another ingenious plan is always there for the taking. </p><p>When they are feeling just a little vindictive, and want to prove their metal, Barbara Gordon and Stephanie Brown invite a couple Arrows out for drinks and darts. Ollie and Roy are a little scared of them now, only Conner and Mia agree anymore. It is Dinah’s favorite thing, but she can’t get the truth of how they manage it from either of them. </p><p>They bring Tim to karaoke nights with Apollo, sometimes. And he doesn’t even hit on him too much. He tries to explain, as best he can, why Athena is the way he is. “I cannot promise your mother will ever give you what you deserve, Tim,” He says “But you’ll get it someday. I know it.”</p><p>“Someday,” Barbara repeats, glowing green in the light of her monitors. She shares bits and pieces of the someday she can see: Stephanie graduating medical school, Damian with ten lines under his legion tattoo, happy christmases and peaceful thanksgivings. She doesn’t share sometimes, dark or dangerous or even too good to be true. The gift of prophecy is a gift, but legend is full of heroes who try to fight it and only find tragedy. </p><p>Once Thomas Wayne’s plans for Wayne industries had drawn a goddess to his side. Now Tim Drake-Wayne looks at those plans and works to make them better. Better than anything Thomas or Athena could have imagined. Tim goes hard and tires not to let it be just about seeking his mother's approval. There is work to be done, and Tim, who’s never met a logic puzzle he hasn’t cracked, gets to work.</p><p>Damian sneaks out at night and joins a ragtag group of teen heroes, but more importantly, he finds a place in New Rome and Camp Jupiter.  He gets himself invited on quests. Damian kills great monsters and is raised on a shield, is elected centurion. He learned to be a leader from the best in the business, and he leads the fifth cohort just the way Dick Grayson taught him. And he leads them to a victory blessed by his mother. </p><p>Alfred lives the way only a child of death really can, present, in the moment, with the knowledge that the end comes to everyone, so we must embrace what we have. He counsels his son and his grandchildren. He loads celestial bronze into his shotgun and shots when they need it. He does not need to kill anyone else. But he is always willing, and that is more helpful than any of them will ever know. </p><p>And when Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian find the leader of the Robin War that is brewing in the streets of Gotham, they are not surprised when they meet gray eyes. </p><p>“Sure thing, Bro. We can help.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Check me out on <a href="http://darkmagyk.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>. There is lots of batfam and lots of Percy Jackson and I literally always want to talk about either or both of them.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>